everything is always happening
this newsletter ended up being mostly about wildfires and a little bit about US politics. welcome to my sick and twisted mind
first i want to thank everyone for subscribing to my newsletter, i just reached 500 subscribers which is a very small number but bigger than i ever expected given the fact that i’m deeply inconsistent with writing here. maybe hitting a nice new number like 500 will motivate me to write more. we’ll see if that’s the case. lol.
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
lenin really went off when he said that. let’s recap some of the notable things that happened in the past two weeks, just so we’re on the same page:
donald trump survived an assassination attempt by turning his head a little bit by chance (extremely funny in my opinion)
he chose j.d. vance of all people as his VP pick, a man so obsessed with the idea that “the left” is calling him racist that i now can only assume he’s committed many hate crimes
after about a month of biden insisting he isn’t dropping out after that pathetic debate against trump, biden finally dropped out and endorsed kamala harris
oh and biden has covid again. who knows if he’ll make it this time
kamala harris’s new campaign prompted ironic and unironic endorsement from many anti-biden democrats, which inevitably has led to discourse about hypocrisy, whether or not kamala will be just as bad when it comes to palestine, her track record as a district attorney and “california’s top cop,” among other things
the ICJ ruled that israel’s occupation of palestinian territory is unlawful, which while important, is also a non-binding ruling but rather an advisory opinion given to the UN general assembly, which could then pass a resolution based on the ruling, which would also be non-binding
schizophrenic gen Xers are saying every wildfire is arson again and that everyone is being paid by trudeau to start them because carbon tax (?)
speaking of wildfires, hundreds of them are burning across BC and alberta, prompting many evacuation orders, including from williams lake, wells, barkerville, and many first nations in BC, and yesterday, jasper, AB was ordered to evacuate, with the only evacuation route being west into BC due to the highway being closed in the other direction. and last night, all routes out of fort mcmurray, AB were closed due to wildfires (thankfully some have reopened)
sunday, july 21 was the hottest day on earth ever recorded, breaking the previous record that was set a year ago in july 2023
that’s only scratching the surface, and yes i’m exaggerating a little by saying that decades have happened in the last 10 days, but still, a lot has happened, and all of it is swirling around in my head endlessly and inescapably.
the trump assassination attempt was objectively kind of funny
listen, i wouldn’t publicly call for anyone to be assassinated, but you can’t deny that it’s funny that some kid that was a registered republican that also donated $15 to ActBlue once, who had pictures of various politicians on his phone as if he didn’t know what biden or trump or nancy pelosi look like, and seemed somewhat unprepared to actually carry out an assassination. he seemed like a bit of an idiot who just took the opportunity that came up closest in proximity to him. i don’t even really care what his motivation was, or his personal history, i just think it’s objectively funny that he shot trump in the ear and that the secret service fumbled the whole situation so badly. truly a testament to how much of a mess the US is.
kamala harris should choose amy klobuchar as her VP pick
i think it would be really girlboss of kamala to get amy klobuchar on board with her. every cop girlboss needs her stapler-throwing sidekick who eats salads with combs. can. you imagine how annoying everyone would be if this happened? i, for one, need it to happen.
i just don’t want it to be pete buttigieg. i don’t like that little robotic rat-faced bitch.
did you guys know that climate change is real? that’s crazy
july is always the month where i start thinking about climate change more than my baseline, which is always pretty high, but it’s genuinely unavoidable in july. it gets insanely hot, fires break out across western canada, the US, and europe, and people start arguing about the actual cause of wildfires.
since i live in BC and am most familiar with the way wildfire seasons play out in BC, i can really only speak to the situation here. in BC, the majority of wildfires are caused by lightning, since in these later days of summer, after dry, hot weather has made the province an absolute tinderbox of fuels, low pressure systems start to come in, generating severe thunderstorms, but since it’s so hot, the rain never reaches the ground due to evaporating, and you get dry lightning hitting all this dry fuel, igniting many fires at once across great swathes of the province. and if these fires get a lot bigger and more intense due to heat and intense wind, you can get pyrocumulonimbus clouds forming, which can actually end up producing even more lightning, creating even more fires.
classic climate change denial talking points come up right around now, arguing that summers are always hot, thunderstorms always existed, some seasons are better which means the climate hasn’t changed, fire is good for the environment because it’s natural, and straight up denial that the fires are even attributable to lightning, jumping to the conspiracy theory that the fires were actually started by arsonists on justin trudeau’s payroll, which will make everyone think climate change is real, justifying more government overreach and more taxes.
anthropogenic climate change is an undeniable reality. we can see it happening in front of us, we have proof of it, it’s simply not up for debate. it’s extremely easy to understand that more frequent, more intense heat waves are a product of climate change, especially since records keep getting broken year after year. and climate change also intensifies and increases the frequency of storms. which means that during hot seasons, you get more frequent lightning, but without the precipitation hitting the ground. this creates a perfect storm (no pun intended) for worse wildfire seasons.
the idea that fire is good for the environment is true, to a degree. wildfires started by lightning have always happened, and before colonization and the advent of wildfire fighters doing full suppression methods, fires would burn as a natural part of the regeneration of forests. fires help release the seeds of pine and spruce trees, fire-adapted species often don’t flower until a fire has happened, and all of this is an essential part of ecosystems in which fires have always happened.
additionally, indigenous cultural burning and prescribed fires have long been used as a form of traditional forest management, and are very beneficial for safety. prescribed burns reduce the amount of available hazardous fuels, making it easier to protect areas and people from the effects of wildfires. BC wildfire service does prescribed burns now to help manage fuels and works alongside indigenous communities to plan and implement prescribed burns. this comes after an entire history of full suppression being the main form of wildfire management, and over 100 years after the bush fire act of 1874 was enacted, which banned cultural burns, preventing communities from doing essential and sacred forest management work.
so yes, fire is good, but only to a certain extent and within the context of planned burns and forest management, all of this complicated by climate change.
the problem is that climate change increases the frequency and intensity of fires, which often threaten communities, leading to loss of life and loss of homes, and overall devastation. it’s not normal for wildfire seasons to break records year after year. 2023 was the most destructive wildfire season in recorded BC history, with 72% of wildfires being natural-caused, 25% human caused, and 3% undetermined. the year saw 265,321 recorded lightning strikes, which is above average. before that, 2018 saw the largest area burned in BC history. and before that, 2017 was the worst. and before that, 2015 broke records and was considered one of the worst wildfire seasons in 10 years. before that, 2014 saw the third-most land burned in BC history.
every year is different, some years see below average seasons due to late starts to spring, snowpack melting later in the year, cooler temperatures, and impacts from la niña on the moisture and fuel across the province. but it’s undeniable that when you break records that often, something is deeply, deeply wrong.
track of the week
fuck it, keep listening to brat. it’s a good fucking album. probably album of the year. i don’t care if it’s old news.
the signs as thoughts i keep having
aries - i should start a fight on twitter right now
taurus - i wish i could sleep for 24 hours straight
gemini - i think if i ran for mayor i could get elected and i would be really good at it
cancer - if one more negative thing happens to me i’m going to sob uncontrollably
leo - [while staring in the mirror] i look hot
virgo - i could fix him
libra - everyone has good points but also everyone is wrong and we should all hear each other out
scorpio - if i tell anyone how i’m actually feeling it will make me vulnerable to psychological attacks
sagittarius - i need to get on a train immediately and go as far as possible
capricorn - i don’t have time for anything i need to WORK!!
aquarius - we could solve every single problem on the planet with socialism
pisces - i think am psychic
It would be pretty sick if you ran for mayor ngl. I look forward to "the signs as municipal departments that no one knows exists" in a far-future post